>Would saints really be the teachers of 'readings' of the Abiding Book then.
In my opinion, the Abiding Book is the grimoire of Malkion, the acts of the Invisible God when he was a visible man. He teaches certain basic truths, a few spells here and there, but these set the bedrock for the revelations of the Saints.
For example "Malkion instructs the Soldier" actually teaches the soldier how to use the Conflict Rune when fighting. But that happened in the Good Old Days when understanding Runes was much easier than it is now (because those were the days where men were ten feet tall etc). So what the War Saints effectively do is use the basic spells to generate their own fighting magics which are much easier for modern men to use. So rather than alternative readings, they are more like expansion sets.
Of course there's complications in the above picture (Loskalm doesn't use the Abiding Book, the Rokari are trying to suppress Saints) but that's my impression of the relationship between the fundamental scriptures and the saintly grimoires.
Ian then describes how the Saintly Orders might be less formal and rigorous than the Wizard Orders and how this impacts on their magic. I think that in a Saintly Order there's a mixture of low and high worshippers. The low worshippers are the ones into worshipping the Saint for the warm fuzzies while the high worshippers are more dedicated, have better magic and some may even be wizards. In a Wizard Order there's no low worshippers.
Becoming a New Saint within a Saintly Order. A remark by Ian made me think for a while. There's a tension between Saints achieving their status by revealing something new on the Saints Plane and the impression conveyed in the rules that people in the Saintly Orders follow their saints. I think a way to handle it would be to have a core quest within each order of how the Saint reached their chosen rune (like harmony for Xemela and Conflict for Gerlant). Devout worshippers might choose to go on this quest and if they succeed end up with a new presence on the Saints Plane (not a fully fledged grimoire). Reflecting on this presence will allow them to innovate new magics and with a lot of work a grimoire that can be learned within the order. Becoming a Saint however requires a number of people willing to venerate you rather than your chosen saint and that requires politics as well as piety.
--Peter Metcalfe
>The western mystic presumably sees all such readings as stunted
>visions of the all - the truth that can be gained by understanding
>the whole revelation of the Abiding Book.
Powered by hypermail